


For Your Own Good

by poisontaster



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-30
Updated: 2008-04-30
Packaged: 2019-05-26 01:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14990213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: Set after 2.13 "Exit Wounds".There are many things he can and will do for Jack. This is just one of them.





	For Your Own Good

**Author's Note:**

> _Don't you think I could_  
>  _make a difference tonight?_  
>  _When you need a lover_  
>  _and it's so cold outside_  
>  _I could help you recover_  
>  _from pain that you hide_  
>  _Life isn't easy_  
>  _so why don't you stay_  
>  _with the lover you need_  
>  _and not the devil you pay?_  
>  _For your own good_  
>  ~ "For Your Own Good" by Pet Shop Boys

"Ianto. There you are."

It's an effort not to flinch when Jack springs out at him as he's coming up the steps. The springing doesn't help, though of course, it's more than that. On the other hand, Ianto has many months of steeling himself to opacity whenever anyone at Torchwood approaches him and he doesn't lose lessons learned. "Jack?"

It doesn't mean anything that Jack is here, now. Jack doesn't know _anything._

And that's how Ianto plans to keep it.

"I can't find the Post-It Notes."

The corner of Ianto's mouth curls up with amusement as he comes even with Jack. Jack doesn't budge, crowding Ianto on the edge of the stair. "You came all the way down here to the crypt to ask me where the Post-It Notes are?" Ianto asks. _"Sir?"_

Jack's smile spreads slowly, like a sunrise, but its light never makes it all the way to his eyes. It's going to take time for that. Of course, it would seem that Jack has nothing but time. It's not that Ianto hadn't known that, of course. But the taste of it is particularly bitter in his mouth today—the endless amount of time before Jack (and behind him, for that matter) and how very little of it does or will have Ianto in it. 

None of which changes the present in the least.

Jack sways into Ianto, his hands sliding down Ianto's lapels. "Well. Not _just_ the Post-Its."

In thirty minutes, when Ianto has either left for home or has, cock in hand, bent Jack over his own sprawling desk, the computers will register the malfunction. Quietly, and with no fanfare, because the alarm formerly went to Tosh's console and, with all of this so new, it has yet to be reassigned or rerouted to anyone else. 

All of this will be quiet, and with no fanfare; Ianto has no reason to check the duty rosters and reports until tomorrow morning—or later, given the larger disasters grabbing at their attention—and by then, it will be too late. Point of fact, it already _is_ too late; Ianto saw to that.

A simple malfunction. No one to blame. 

Jack puts his head on Ianto's shoulder, a strange contrast to all the times it's been the other way around. Still, there are many things he can and will do for Jack. This is just one of them. Ianto puts his arms around Jack, drawing him in.

Really, when you come down to it, it's much the same. 

Ianto will let Jack press him into the wall, let Jack ravage his neck, his chin, his mouth. 

Ianto will sabotage the cryochamber in which Jack has enshrined his brother, he will _kill_ Gray, deliberately and with malice aforethought...and for the exact same reason. 

Jack breathes softly against the thin strip of bare skin above Ianto's collar. Just that is enough to prickle his flesh in goosebumps and kindle fire deep in his belly and lower. When Jack's lips touch what his breath has sensitized, Ianto shudders, fingers closing convulsively around Jack's waist.

Jack Harkness is a man of iron will and soft heart. The fact that Ianto is here now, alive and breathing, is testament to that.

The possibility that Jack will repent of this, that Jack will set Gray free himself, like a biblical plague, is not beyond imagining. The possibility that the cryo could malfunction without any assistance or interference from anyone, or that John could have yet another change of heart, or any one of another million things that could go wrong and bring Gray crashing back into their lives... None can be discounted. Steps must be taken to protect Cardiff, Torchwood and Jack. 

Sometimes from themselves. 

"Upstairs," Ianto groans. Jack shifts against him, palming Ianto through his trousers. "Jack— Upstairs."

He knows if the positions were reversed, if Jack were less...involved, then Jack would do the same for him. For all of them.

Jack lifts his head and smiles at Ianto again, already a little brighter. "Ianto Jones." 

Ianto knows this, because Jack already has. 

Lisa had to die. Ianto understands that now. 

And Gray has to die, too.

Jack cups Ianto's cheek and strokes his face fondly with his thumb. "What would I do without you to save me from myself?"

"We save each other, sir. Every day."

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, a wee bit of a ramble. After "Exit Wounds", I did actually go around and read a number of reactions posts, and I stumbled across a comment by turnonmyheels (to greenapricot): _In my mind, Ianto has already killed Grey and set up the cryo-unit to make it look like a malfunction just in case a) Jack decides to try the whole family reunion thing again b) the unit does malfunction and he thaws and does it again c) Jack did essentially the same thing for him with Lisa and he's returning favor d) he really *is* that ... twisted isn't the right word. Calculating, pragmatic, cold, disassociative. It's very Slytherin - Snape would have done it too._
> 
> I have a story stuck in Inspirational Hell—and that I actually posited _before_ "Fragments" of a Ianto like this, turned just a bit more _dark_ after the attack on Canary Wharf, and a little more sociopathic in the way he manipulates Jack. *pets dark!Ianto* And so when I read turnonmyheels's comment, I _needed to write that story_. And I essentially begged her to do so. She was gracious enough to give her permission, for which I am ever grateful. 
> 
> The thing that interests me the most about the idea is the double-edges; yes, I have no doubt that Ianto is capable of taking this kind of definitive action as a preventative measure…if only, as he observes, to protect Jack from himself. On the other hand, the revenge aspect—and not only that, but the "dish served _cold_ " aspect—cannot be denied. There is a kind of round table justice to Ianto ending Gray's life the way that Jack ended Lisa's. And, whether motivated by base emotion or simply a sense of karmic tidiness, I think Ianto is capable of that too. To that end, though Ianto has begun calling Jack by his given name more often, I have him using "sir" here to emphasize that, in Ianto's mind, at least, this is an act for/by Torchwood and thus, divorced from their personal relationship.


End file.
